Presented by Dr. W. Terry Bailey

 “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”

 Over the last few months I have taught extensively on the feasts of Passover and Pentecost and what they mean to us today.  We are in a three-year season of harvest.  God is moving us into a place of harvest.

 There are some awesome changes on the horizon for the Body of Christ.  God is shifting things.

 One prominent prophetic voice recently said:  “Heaven and earth are aligning and we are the aligning rod.”

 Many of you have been in a difficult place.  You have been attacked, maligned, and assaulted by your enemy.  The attack is to move you out of the timing of God and keep you entering into you new assignment, which is your mission field, and your place of harvest.

 II Corinthians 3:18 – “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

 When God sent Moses to Pharaoh and He worked ten different plagues against Pharaoh and the Egyptian people.  These ten plagues were against ten different idol gods that were worshipped and revered by the Egyptians.  God showed them the utter powerlessness of their gods, and He showed them as well as the Israelites His awesome miracle power.

 Exodus 12:11 – “And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and you staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.”

 “Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, “Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.”  18 So God led the people around by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. And the children of Israel went up in orderly ranks out of the land of Egypt.  19 And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had placed the children of Israel under solemn oath, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here with you.”  20 So they took their journey from Succoth and camped in Etham at the edge of the wilderness.”

 The Hebrew word for wilderness is the word, “Midvar,”  Numbers 1:1 – “The LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting..”

 Uncharted territory – The wilderness is uncharted territory. It is a place we are to chart out for others who will follow us. Some of us are in a place that we have never been before. The children of Israel were in uncharted territory. They had to be led by the cloud of God’s presence.

 Transition – Transition is always difficult. This is a place to get through. God has a time. We may determine how long we stay if we prolong the process and don’t cooperate with God. There are some things that I have learned about transition:  Transition is difficult and confusing.  There is a definite end to transition.  God provides supernaturally during transition.  We must be careful to clearly hear His voice during transition.

 A Place where things die – God will use the wilderness to work death in your flesh. Death to your carnal pursuits. He uses the wilderness to prepare us for our promise. The wilderness is the process that prepares us for the promotion. God begins with a promise, takes us through the process (wilderness), and then brings us into the promise.

 It is a place of humility – This is where we learn to truly rely totally on God. It is a place of humility because God uses it to deal with self-reliance, self-dependence, and our pride.

 It is the place where we must have a release of His Word – We must have a word from God if we are going to take possession of our promise. (A place where His word is communicated.

 There were five different places of testing on their journey from Passover to Pentecost.  Why five? Five is the number of Grace.

 The name Marah literally means bitter. There will be some bitter water in the wilderness, but God will provide a healing.  Exodus 15:22-26

 Elim – Numbers 33:9 “And they set out from Marah and came to Elim; at Elim there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there.”  Elim was an Oasis in the wilderness. It was a place of good water. It would have been tempting to stay in this place of refreshing.

 Wilderness of Sin – We learn that they journeyed from Elim into the wilderness of sin.  This was the place of no food!  Exodus 16:2-3

 Rephidim – No water – Exodus 17  This was a place where there was no water.  Exodus 17:1-2

 Rephidim – Amelek attacks. Amelek was a wicked tribe that would attack from the rear of the camp and take out the stragglers. We must know who we are connected to when we are in the wilderness. We must stay close to our covenant relationships and covering during this season. Watch out for the ambushes of the enemy in this season.

 To bring order out of disorder. He gave them the Law to set boundaries and to govern them as a people.  They now became a nation under God – under His law. There are twelve loosely confederated tribes that become a nation.  The Hebrew number 50 symbolically represents liberty, freedom and deliverance.  God also gave them the pattern of the Tabernacle and His instructions on how they were to worship Him.

 In the New Testament there are two Greek words for time. One is chronos, and the other is kairos.  Chronos refers to chronological time – days, weeks, months, and years.  Kairos refers to an appointed or opportune time.  The Lord has appointed our kairos times that He has set aside for visitation.

 The greatest visitation of God in history was during the 33 years that Jesus walked on earth.  As Jesus moved among the people, tremendous blessings on an unprecedented scale fell on those with whom He came into contact.

 In Luke 1:5-25 we read the story of the priest Zacharias who was righteous and blameless in the sight of the Lord.  One day, while performing his normal priestly duties, an angel of the Lord visited him and told him that his petition had been heard and that Elizabeth would bear a son whom they were to name John.

 When visitation comes, God always releases some type of strategic information that thrusts us forward in His purposes.

 Visitation produces glory – The true presence of God cannot visit humans without His glory radiating from that presence.